Changing Default Settings

Wow, I really suck at this... as do, I imagine, almost everyone in the human race.

On your computer there is such a thing as default settings. These settings are the place your computer starts at, the place where your computer is set when it leaves the factory - its birth settings. As time goes by, the computer changes, grows, learns, becomes more efficient to handling things the way we want them to. If something ever goes wrong, however, the computer will always fall back to its default setting - and all progress that had been made will be tossed aside.

I seem to be set to fall back to my default setting. And that default setting is Me, Myself, and I. If push comes to shove, I always return to what I want, what I need, what is best for me. I feel as if I was created that way. But I'm not the only one.

I was reading a novel at lunch about World War II, in particular the D-Day landings in France. General Eisenhower was thinking about all the bickering, all the behind the back slandering and whispering, and all the arguments and dirty looks between the various commanders of the vast allied armed forces and he wondered, "Are we all twelve years old?" These men were clearly using their default settings to plan the invasion of France. Eventually, however, they came around to a way of thinking that was beneficial to all people.

I was also thinking about the Goldman Sachs case which is very complicated. On one hand, the government argues that top executives created a hedge fund that bet that the mortgage market would fail allowing investors to bet that the mortgage market would succeed. When 99% of the fund failed, it was discovered that the fund was selected by someone that had taken out insurance on all the mortgages that were about to fail. While investors lost billions, the guy who owned all that insurance made billions. It occurred to me that regardless of which side was legally right, morally both sides were only looking out for themselves. The squabble over this money concerns nobody but those people who stood to make billions of dollars on other people's mortgage money. It used to be that business was business - people made money by providing a service or product that was useful for everyone else. Now the Stock Market has become a den of gamblers and thieves willing to do anything necessary to create money out of thin air - even if it means sending the entire economy into a vast tail spin, or pushing jobs overseas to make a better profit, or requiring managers to fire long time employees and replace them with people who make less money. There is nothing moral about big business today. Its all about that me, myself, and I default position and that mantra that says it is righteous to be wealthy.

But what is there to do about it? God made a covenant with his people. He told them that he would take care of all their needs - but they still wanted more. Then he punished them. He tried again by creating laws. But the people used those laws as weapons, as a means to gain power for themselves, as a way to get ahead and lead. God punished them again. Finally, he came personally to show the people the way. He showed them that to be truly righteous you had to love and obey God and to serve others, not yourself. God showed us the REAL default setting we should have - that when push came to shove, it should be Other People As Much As Yourself - Even Your Enemies. Well, we killed God this time. We killed Him dead. Stuck Him on a cross. But that still didn't work.

That was the last warning. The next time God comes back, He's not going to try and explain to us what we've been doing wrong. He's done that already. We NEED to change our default settings - as a species, as a society, as individuals. We NEED to help others and take care of others - not as a matter of a tax right off, but as a matter of necessity. How can we be comfortable when others suffer without at least trying to do something about it? No stock portfolio or business acumen or list of accomplishments are more important than how we treat one another.

I wish I was successful at changing my own default settings. Lord knows I've been shown the way many times. But I still put myself first. I shall continue to try and change, and I urge you to do the same. That, ultimately, is all that we can do.